Crushing on an ex’s best friend

Dear Sasha, The place I currently work at is pretty small, there's less than twenty employees here and everybody's really close. I will admit though that one of the main reasons why I really like this job is because of D. D works in the same area I do and we both generally tend to work the same hours so we've gotten to be pretty close over the last couple of months. He's the type of guy who understands my humor and we can talk for hours about nothing. In fact, D and I are so close we've started talking about the possibility of dating. Except for one problem, D's best friend works here, too - let's call him M - and M and I used to date, like, back in high school. And things didn't end well. I mean, I would like to say that M and I are cool and old enough to bury the hatchet but we're not. When I started working, he wouldn't even talk to me. Whenever he did talk, it would only be out of necessity and even then, he would try to find somebody else to talk to. And you know what, I'm not going to lie, I do the same thing but not to the extent that he does. I have no idea how to approach him about this strange non relationship that we have because I'm cool with everybody at work but him and he's cool with everybody at work but me and it's getting tiring. I don't want to be best friends with the guy but I certainly don't want this. Especially when I'm in to his best friend. So what now? H

You’ve heard me say before that the only person you have control over is yourself and H, this applies directly to your situation. If you really want to put an end to this immature game between you and M, then um, stop being a part of it. It’s really as simple as that.

Look, I bet you that if I was to sit the both of you down you’d probably find out that this apparent beef you think you have is actually based on NOTHING and that neither of you really know why you are being such a-holes to each other. Obviously, somewhere down the line one of you got offended over something stupid, and then from there it spiraled into an out-cool, out-mean contest.

So here’s what I propose: be pleasant with him from here on out. If you kill the silent treatment on your end, I can almost guarantee he’ll start being more civil to you. But if he does continue to cop ‘tude then that’s on him. No matter what the outcome though, you free yourself of this bullsh-t.

Now, when it comes to pursing things with D, well, I don’t know why you’re even questioning it. Buddy doesn’t seem to be bothered by your past and present baggage with M, so looks like you’ve got the green light to get your f-ck on.